


Conspiracy of Silence: Band of Four

by Nomad (nomadicwriter)



Series: Conspiracy of Silence [4]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Adventure, Backstory, Drama, Gen, MWPP Era, Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-01-06
Updated: 2002-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 16:15:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 17,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomadicwriter/pseuds/Nomad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape's fourth year at Hogwarts. Rival gangs on the same turf spell trouble...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: ** J.K. Rowling created and owns Hogwarts, Severus Snape, and almost everything else in this story - for which I will be forever jealous.  
**Author's Note**: The sequel to CoS: Triple Exposure.

** Band of Four **

The Hogwarts Express was practically empty. Severus Snape was actually able to get a carriage to himself, a situation that suited him down to the ground.

A loner by design, and exceptionally intelligent, Sev had slotted naturally into House Slytherin. There he'd been in the perfect position to realise exactly how dangerous some of his fellow students truly were, and to infiltrate Lucius Malfoy's little hate group as he led them deeper and deeper into darkness.

Outwitting the plots of the organisation that called themselves the Death Eaters had been an intellectual exercise, but it had taken on a decidedly sinister turn of late. Several people had been killed, even inside Hogwarts itself; the latest as good as by Sev's own hand. He had been forced to reveal one of his teachers as a Ministry of Magic spy to protect Malfoy; for if Malfoy was busted too soon, Sev would lose any chance he had of reaching the heart of the conspiracy.

It wasn't any kind of ego or pride that told him that he was the only person who could do so; simply the icy cold logic that was very much the core of his personality. Of everybody at Hogwarts, staff and students alike, the only one he considered to be in his intellectual league was Albus Dumbledore. And the headmaster had, in Sev's eyes, one fatal flaw; he believed in trusting people.

Also, everybody who knew anything was well aware that Dumbledore would have nothing to do with a group like the Death Eaters. Nobody was half as sure about Severus Snape.

Very few people ever got a glimpse beneath the impassive exterior - and those that did saw a similarly impassive interior. Sev Snape was not completely immune to emotion or humanity, but he was a creature of logic down to the bone. Nothing he did was uncalculated.

Perhaps the closest thing to a friend he'd had was Lily, one of the only two people who had ever found out that Snape was anything other than the dark-hearted follower of Malfoy he appeared. But Lily was a Gryffindor, a mudblood, and very close to Malfoy's arch-enemy, James Potter. Someone else might try to find a way to continue their association without being caught, but Sev was able to view the idea dispassionately and see the stupidity of it. The kindest thing he could do for Lily was to openly detest her.

So he had no friends or confidantes, and wasn't unduly troubled by that fact. He wouldn't have traded a fraction of a percent of his intelligence for popularity; nor would he even for the chance to wipe out the Death Eaters. He was not naive enough to believe that prejudice and stupidity could actually be permanently stamped out; his work against them was a work of logic and pragmatism, not of noble intentions.

Logic dictated that if the Death Eaters had their way, the current order would be replaced with something far more inefficient and unbalanced. There was no way you could pursue a solitary life of gathering knowledge under such a system - and little hope of finding anyone to learn _from_ when people were judged more on their pedigree than their abilities. And somebody as bright as he would sooner or later be a target; those who wanted power would never accept that others could be disinterested in it.

So clearly, the Death Eaters had to be stopped from gaining power. This was a problem; Severus Snape's brain was geared to finding the most efficient solution to problems. Stopping them would involve having the best possible pool of information about their activities; which meant the best possible spy.

Which meant, naturally, himself.

He had as much of Malfoy's trust as anybody; but that was not a lot. He was no less cynical than Sev himself, just less thorough. Sev could not afford to deviate a tiny fraction from his role for as long as it took - and that meant making strategic sacrifices.

Sev was not a chess player, but mainly because he knew he would never find a good enough opponent to match him. On the chess board, everybody knew you couldn't win without sacrificing pieces with lesser abilities for those in more useful positions. But when it came to reality, people didn't want to believe that the exact same rules applied. The James Potters of this world believed that you could dash in heroically and save the world without ever getting a dent in your nobility.

That was why the James Potters of this world did the heroic dashing-in at the end, and the Severus Snapes laid all the meticulous ground-work.

Others, however, were built neither for subterfuge nor for heroism. The vast majority of human beings, magical or otherwise, were timid and creatures of habit. When dark things started stirring, they either turned the other cheek or ran to ground.

It wasn't just the train that seemed near-empty; the Hogwarts Great Hall was a ghost of its usual bustling splendour. One teacher had been killed, another disappeared, a third had turned out to have murderous intentions; Hogwarts was no longer sacred ground, and people were scared to send their children there.

Even Sev's own year-group had suffered some losses this time around. The other three houses were all at least one student smaller than the same time last year, and Slytherin itself had lost Rebecca Whistley and Jack Brisingamen. The two remaining boys who weren't amongst Malfoy's followers, Stuart and Robert, were sat close together in a kind of apprehensive solidarity.

Even the staff had given up pretending all was normal. As Professor Dumbledore stood to make his tradition Post-Sorting Speech - much earlier than usual, given the shortened, subdued ceremony - his face was sad and grave.

"Welcome, students new and old. I am glad to see you here, and saddened by the faces that are absent this year."

His steely-blue eyes seemed to fix on every student simultaneously. "This is a dark time for the wizarding community, but as ever our strength is in solidarity. Hogwarts has been the core of our country's magical strength in times past, and so it will remain."

He nodded to the staff beside him. Sev noted that there were one less chairs than there had been last year; clearly, no one had been willing to replace the departed Cuero.

"Our staff have been working tirelessly to secure the safety of the grounds. I will not lie to you; no defences are truly foolproof. But I firmly believe that Hogwarts still remains one of the best protected magical locations on this planet."

Sev didn't doubt that such a claim was true. However, the fact that nobody could storm the castle meant little when the enemy were already well inside the gates and plotting treachery.

"I appreciate that many of you may be worried for your own safety, and for the safety of your families. And rightly so, for we are all wizards here; though you are young, none of you are too young to want to use your powers to protect yourself and others."

For the first time, he cracked a hint of a smile. "However, I am also aware that when young wizards seek to use their powers in such ways, there can be... complications." His gaze flickered over one or two well-known living disaster areas. "Therefore, as of this year, Hogwarts will be establishing a duelling club."

A murmur of interest rippled through the tables. Most of the students probably had little more than disquieting guesses at exactly what was going on in the outside world, but all of them were interested in magical duelling. Beside him, Avery nudged Malfoy.

"Is it me," he muttered with a smirk, "or did Dumbledore just give us a free pass to totally trash Potter and his little gang?"

Perhaps Dumbledore was sharp enough to know exactly what certain of his students were thinking; perhaps there was some truth in the rumour that he heard everything. He levelled a stern look at the older students over his glasses. "Note the inclusion of the word 'club' in that statement. There will be meeting times arranged in the evenings and lunch hours for the different year groups, and members of staff will always be there to supervise. The prohibition against student duelling is still in effect at _all other times_. Now, more than ever, the last thing we need is childish student pranks. If the staff come upon cursing in progress, they may well Stun first and ask questions later. You have been warned."

No doubt there would be some screaming objections from parents if it ever came down to that. And no doubt the Governors or the Ministry of Magic would come along and attempt to give Dumbledore a slapped wrist for it. They were all idiots; unwilling to believe that 'children' could ever be any danger. Sev knew that this kind of darkly seductive organisation was perhaps twice as dangerous amongst adolescents as it would be anywhere else. Teenagers were looking for something to believe in; Malfoy had found the Death Eaters, and the others had found Malfoy.

Malfoy had slowly but surely drawn them in over the last few years, and by this point they would probably follow him everywhere. One of the hallmarks of house Slytherin was a thirst for power, and the Death Eaters provided a deadly way to slake it. Though they were only just reaching their middle year at the school, already Malfoy and his followers strode around as if they owned it. And Sev strode with them, impassive mask in place. Everybody would draw the conclusions he desired from that, because nobody else was smart enough to look deeper.

Malfoy, certainly, was by now well satisfied with the loyalties of his followers. He had a certain degree of support amongst the younger and even the older students in their house, but his four roommates were the core of his power structure. At midnight that first night, he rose from his bed and went about shaking them awake.

"I'm not asleep," said Sev quietly, opening his eyes as the blond boy approached his bed. Malfoy rolled his eyes, and smiled.

"Do you ever sleep?"

"I sleep as much as I need to," responded Snape shortly. He was an insomniac, but the lack of sleep never troubled him; in truth, he needed it. Two or three hours of quiet darkness to line his thoughts up was what kept his brain running like the well-oiled machine it was. In prior years he had roamed the halls of Hogwarts, observing, but that would be more difficult now. He had given his invisibility cloak to Lily, and the security precautions this year would be that much stronger.

Apparently such thoughts didn't trouble Malfoy. When Colin looked nervous, he smiled knowingly, and said "No one will see us. We have friends in all sorts of places."

Malfoy, of course, knew who the Death Eater on staff was; but he would never share that information with Sev if the situation didn't demand it. He was well aware that his closest confidante was brighter than he was, and he guarded what advantages he had jealously. Though Sev could line up suspects with the information he had, his need for precision prevented him from narrowing it down to one without sufficient evidence.

The little train of Slytherins made their way out of the dorms with a surprising lack of disturbance. They were all accustomed to moving about light-footed; even bulky Colin Crabbe had learned to move gracefully in his sideline as a petty thief.

Malfoy led them down out of the castle and towards the Forbidden Forest. There was nobody to mark their passage, not even old Pringle, the caretaker. He was getting far too old to chase after errant students in any case; no doubt he would soon draft a replacement.

"Where are we _going_, Lucius?" demanded Avery in a slightly whiny tone of voice. That sounded very much like Nick Avery; only too happy to cleanse the world of mudbloods, provided the holy mission didn't cut into his sleep patterns.

Malfoy, of course, was airing his enigmatic smile. "You'll see. We're meeting a friend."

Sev took that in. He doubted very much the friend would be the staff Death Eater; he got the impression that whoever it was, they had no intention of being as trusting of Malfoy's followers as the boy himself. It was conceivable that someone could have smuggled themselves into the depths of the forest, but given the reinforced defences it seemed an unnecessary risk.

There were powerful shields against Apparating on the Hogwarts grounds that the Death Eaters would be crazy to try and break. They had been there for several centuries, and built upon by every successive headmaster. Dumbledore would know in a heartbeat if anyone was trying to breach them. Nobody could get in that way.

It was doubtful anybody had come in; therefore, Lucius must be taking them _out_. Though the Apparating shield went both ways, and the boys were too young to be trained for it in any case, there were other ways to transport people magically.

With this chain of logic winding its way through his head, Sev was not near as surprised as the others when Lucius came to an abrupt halt by a seemingly innocent rock in the middle of a clearing.

"Why are we here?" asked Colin, frowning. Malfoy nodded down at the rock.

"It's a rock," observed Avery shortly. Malfoy rolled his eyes.

"Indeed it is. It's a blue rock with black veins, exactly as I was told to look out for. But it's not just a rock. What is it, Sev?"

Whether Malfoy was trying to outfox him or expecting him to know, Sev didn't disappoint. "It's a Portkey."

He grinned. "Exactly."

"A what?" frowned Colin.

"A Portkey, Crabbe, what are you, a Muggle? It's a magical transporter."

"Where are we going?" frowned Avery.

Malfoy smiled again. "You'll see, soon enough. Everybody, take hold of the rock. We'll travel together."

Sev stepped forwards alongside the others, and they grasped the enchanted rock together. There was an odd sensation in the pit of his stomach, like simultaneously moving and standing still, and suddenly they were... somewhere else.


	2. Chapter 2

They were inside some kind of stone-built castle; too large, Sev saw immediately, to be somebody's private home, and it wasn't any part of Hogwarts he knew.

There was a limit to the number of places this huge that could be magically concealed, and he was pretty damn sure Malfoy wouldn't have transported them into the middle of anything owned by the Ministry of Magic. That left another one of the magical schools.

A young man came hurrying down the corridor towards them. He was perhaps ten years older than them, perhaps a little less; too old to still be a student. He had closely cropped dark hair, and a goatee with a curl.

"Ah. Malfoy and party," he said briskly. His voice was rich and dripping with a kind of bored arrogance.

Malfoy matched him, sneer for sneer. "That's right. Take us to your master." As if, Sev observed with cynical amusement, it wasn't his master too.

The young man guided them rapidly through the echoing corridors. It was extremely cold here, reflected in their guide's fur-lined cloak.

_Durmstrang_, Sev concluded. _This must be Durmstrang._ The young man leading them had no discernible accent, but there was a harsher edge to his voice than you would expect from a native French-speaker. Besides, this castle was altogether too starkly furnished to be the ornate Beauxbatons. It had to be Durmstrang.

Sev wondered if the Death Eaters simply assumed that the Hogwarts boys wouldn't put such basic clues together, or they were just too arrogant to care. Probably the latter. Durmstrang was a notorious home of dark wizards, the whole school an equivalent of Slytherin house at Hogwarts. Besides, it mattered little if they knew they were in Durmstrang, because nobody actually knew where Durmstrang _was_.

They followed the young man to a narrow room that was clearly the base of a tower. Inside stood a blond-haired older man with steely eyes. He glanced at the boys in a vaguely bored way, and turned to Malfoy.

"These are the ones?"

Malfoy nodded briskly. "Yes, Professor Dolohov." It amused Sev slightly that even in the midst of such dark plotting, a teacher would insist on being addressed by his title. But that, he assumed, was Dolohov's way of lording it over Malfoy; emphasising his seniority. In any organisation like the Death Eaters, there would be constant backstabbing and jockeying for position.

"His Lordship will see them one at a time." He nodded to the young man who had brought them in. "Igor, take the first boy."

Igor took a suddenly nervous-looking Nick Avery by the elbow and guided him towards the steps up into the tower. They heard the two pairs of footsteps echoing up into the dark, and then nothing.

About five minutes later, Igor returned alone. He said nothing, but came for Simon Lestrange and took him up the stairs too. Colin Crabbe, standing between Sev and Malfoy and regarding the ceiling anxiously, began to look a little green.

Crabbe was next, and Sev was left alone with Malfoy and Dolohov. The two Death Eaters, professor and boy, pointedly ignored each other. Sev waited in impassive silence for Igor to return for him.

The young man herded him quickly up several flights of stairs, then hung back at the final doorway. "Inside," he said, with a brusque nod. Sev moved to the black wooden door and pushed it open. It was heavier than it would have appeared, but despite his relatively skinny frame Sev had a wiry strength to him.

The room inside was darkened; no doubt to intimidate, and to give the occupant a view of him whilst his eyes were still adjusting. On the other boys - except perhaps for Simon - it had probably worked, but Sev's brain quickly tagged it for the psychological warfare it was.

Drama; the Death Eater leader had a sense of drama. That was good. That was a weakness. Those with a sense of drama wanted to let the world know what they were doing, whilst those like Sev got the job done quietly in the shadows, when nobody was looking.

He waited in the doorway until his eyesight adjusted, and then stepped inside.

A tall, slim figure flowed out of the shadows towards him. It was a dark-haired man; past forty, perhaps, but with a handsome, unlined face. His eyes were as black as Snape's own, and every bit as piercing. He didn't even have to speak, just smile slightly, for Sev to feel the charisma flowing from him; stronger even than that of Lucius Malfoy. This was a man who people would follow. This was a cult leader.

He regarded Sev in impassive silence, who reflected the same attitude right back. The other boys might eventually snap, but not him. However, after a long moment he chanced a respectful nod. He wanted to project strength, not defiance.

The older man gave a nod right back, and smiled softly. "Severus Snape," he said, in a tone that was not a question. He had a pleasant, cultured voice, and spoke as softly as Sev himself. This was a man who didn't need to shout to be obeyed.

"Lord Voldemort," Sev replied. He had little doubt that this was he, although the only person he had yet heard that name from was the Auror Cuero. Perhaps the other man might be surprised that he knew it, but Sev knew he wouldn't abruptly demand to know where he had got it from. That would be to admit to not having full control of the situation.

Indeed, he did not. Voldemort threw back his head and laughed, and in that instant he seemed perhaps twenty years younger. But when he looked back at Sev, there was something cold and serpentine in his eyes. "You're a smart one. Very sly."

"I'm a Slytherin," he said simply.

"Aren't we all?" Abruptly, all traces of the smile were gone, and Voldemort was regarding him with fiery intensity. "You're a listener, I think. A cold one, a silent one. You're cleverer than Malfoy. Why do you follow?"

"Why would I lead?" Sev knew he had to step carefully; very, very carefully. In his fourteen years of life so far, he had met precisely one person who he believed to share his intellectual level; the Hogwarts headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.

As of tonight, he had met two.

This interview with Voldemort was very much like facing the Sorting Hat - except that here, the risks were greater than being relegated to house Hufflepuff. Voldemort seemed able to read the depths of his personality from his eyes; but not all of it.

Nobody had ever read all of it.

"You don't lust for glory. I doubt you care much for the fate of the world, one way or the other. So why are you here? What do you want from us? What can we, the Death Eaters, give you, that you think you cannot give yourself?"

To risk a lie now would be to risk everything. He had to give a truth, and there was only one truth it could possibly be.

"Knowledge."

* * *

Voldemort regarded him silently for a long moment. Then he started to laugh. "Yes. Oh, yes. I see Malfoy has found us a real prize in you. Give me your arm."

Remembering Malfoy's Death Eater symbol, Snape quickly pulled back his robe to bare his left arm.

Instead of producing a wand or some more archaic means of applying a tattoo, Voldemort simply grasped Sev's arm in a powerful two-fingered grip, and spoke the word "_Morsmordrios_."

There was a flash of blinding pain, and Sev allowed the wince of agony to cross his features; he could have controlled it had he desired, but to what end? He doubted Voldemort would be either fooled or impressed. Shows of strength were better saved for the important things.

He automatically gripped his arm as Voldemort released it, but then the pain faded to a tingle. As he moved his fingers away, he saw the shape of the Dark Mark blossoming there. Unlike Malfoy's when he'd seen it, it was not red but pure black.

Voldemort looked at his handiwork and gave a brief, satisfied nod. He looked Sev in the eye, and said "The Dark Mark is my favour, and my power. When I am near, it will burn black. When I wish you summoned to my side, it is through this mark that I will show it. Obey me, and you will share my rise to greatness. Disobey, and you shall earn my disfavour-" he cracked a warmthless smile- "a considerably _more_ painful thing."

Sev knew Voldemort wouldn't be sold if he made some overenthusiastic declaration, so he just nodded, and said "As you will it."

"As I will it," Voldemort agreed, without a trace of irony. He swept his cloak around him, and ordered "Go to the base of the tower, where the others wait." With that, he Disapparated.

_More drama_, thought Sev. Now might have seemed the perfect opportunity to snoop around the upper chamber for evidence of Voldemort's plans, but he wasn't nearly stupid enough to assume he wasn't being watched. He turned and quickly descended the stairs to join the others.

The other boys were all there, the three newly-minted Death Eaters proudly displaying their Dark Marks, and Malfoy looking distinctly relieved. Sev had passed his interview, and no doubt the others had undergone similar questioning before they were branded. It would have been as much a test of Malfoy's judgement as it was of their suitability.

The fact that they had passed had not relieved Dolohov of his contempt. He regarded them all with a thinly veiled sneer.

"So. Now you are Death Eaters. Do not think that your youth somehow excuses you, or allows you to make foolish mistakes. We will tolerate no mistakes."

He swept back his left sleeve abruptly, revealing his own Dark Mark. "The mark identifies you as a true Death Eater; show it to another, and he will know you for what you are." His face darkened. "Show it to one who is _not_ a Death Eater, and we will be _most displeased_." He folded his arms.

"You are the Dark Lord's eyes and ears. None will suspect you, provided you do not act foolishly. Malfoy will be your leader; you will receive your orders through him. Carry them out correctly, and you will be rewarded. If you are ever caught or suspected, you will admit nothing, reveal nothing, and explain nothing. Betray us, and we will hunt you unto the ends of the earth and destroy you."

From the expression on his face, it was clear that Dolohov would much prefer that outcome than to actually have to spend one more minute in their presence.

"Contact will be kept at a minimum. Malfoy knows where to find your local contact; you will liase through him."

Sev could almost respect their stringent security measures. The Ministry of Magic might refuse to believe that children could be used as spies, but the Death Eaters were not so naive. It was paranoia but not unjustified; after all, they did indeed have a youthful spy amongst their new recruits. However, Severus was far smarter than even the most paranoid would give him credit for.

Dolohov's contempt was, in its way, a shield. The young recruits were beneath him; he would pay them as little attention as possible. His fellows, should Sev ever have a chance to meet them, were likely to be the same.

No, his biggest challenge would be Voldemort himself: and below him, Malfoy. His de facto leadership of the boys had now become an official reality, and it remained to be seen how that would affect his attitude to Sev, his biggest rival.

* * *

The novice Death Eaters eagerly awaited the announcement of their first mission, but for a while all was quiet. Their only orders were to keep their eyes open for 'anything of importance', a brief which Sev had been adhering to long before he was ever ordered to.

From what he could gather, the 'anything important' the Death Eaters wanted at Hogwarts was information about the school's revamped defences.

Since troubling events in the outside world had started to impinge on school grounds, Dumbledore had been making every effort to keep them as secure as possible. Professors Vitae and Fractalis, the Charms and Arithmancy teachers, had been helping to shore up the wards around the school, although the bulk of the work fell, naturally, on the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Professor Malachite.

However, new defences weren't the only demand on the staff's precious time. They were still one man down following the disappearance of Cuero; and then there was the duelling club.

Malfoy, naturally, had been keen to sign them all up for the fourth-year group. It tickled his sensibilities to think that 'The Enemy' were taking the time to improve duelling skills that would one day be used against them.

The classes were, of course, packed. Duelling magic was apt to be far more fun than anything learned in lessons, and the students were keen to play around with it. The teachers assigned varied from week to week, but generally it fell to either Professor Vitae or Professor Malachite.

The fact that the two teachers most involved were the respective heads of enemy houses Gryffindor and Slytherin hardly helped to preserve a friendly, non-competitive atmosphere.

Sev was willing to bet that the fourth-year group was the one most likely to explode into all-out magical warfare. In all the years, there were inter-house tensions, but in his own, each side had a charismatic leader: James Potter and Lucius Malfoy.

If you liked Potter, you had to hate Malfoy and his gang. If you liked Malfoy, you had to hate Potter and _his_ gang. If you were trying to be neutral, you were best advised to hit the ground and stay there until the sparks stopped flying.

Even in the early lessons, learning harmless basics like the Disarmament Charm, it was only a matter of minutes before war was joined. The sides were evenly matched; Malfoy had his cadre of Death Eaters, Potter had Sirius, Lily, Remus and Peter. Pete Pettigrew, a small, pudgy and extremely nervous boy, had a quite incredible talent for Transfiguration - much to the dismay of whichever Slytherin he turned it against - and Sirius Black was an explosion waiting to happen. Lily and Remus were less inclined to fight, but they weren't prepared to stand by once the hexes started flying.

Sev himself stayed largely on the sidelines, but he was a legitimate target to the Gryffindors, and when he got hit, he hit back - usually with devastating results. With his photographic memory and penchant for reading, he was a walking library of hexes, and he could always find one that wasn't _too_ dangerous, but looked truly spectacular.

Of course, when this kind of trouble broke out it was down to the teachers to call an end to it - but when you had Vitae and Malachite together, there was no guarantee that would happen.

Professor Vitae let her Gryffindors get away with murder, and Malachite was not unaware of that. A bias tended to exist against House Slytherin - a pose which was a much a cause of its wizards going bad as a defence against it. Professor Malachite was unceasingly angry about the unfairness of it all; "The serpent," he often liked to say, "has been maligned for too long in this school."

That was true enough, but there was little chance of it changing with somebody like Lucius Malfoy acting as a figurehead for house Slytherin. Relations between Vitae and Malachite were hence extremely strained, and they both relished any opportunity to set their houses head-to-head.

"Okay, if somebody would like to come up to the front and show us how it's done?" suggested Professor Vitae after another outbreak of fighting had been quelled. "How about... James and... Lucius. Come on boys." Sev cynically noted the way she paused before the second name, as if anyone would believe that hadn't been her intention all along.

Malfoy grinned darkly in triumph. "Oh, this is gonna be fun," he muttered to his compatriots. "I'm gonna blow the Muggle-loving slime off the face of the planet."

What Professor Vitae probably failed to take into account when arranging the match was that although her boy would stop short of actual homicide, Malfoy might very well not.

Malfoy was clever, but his thirst for vengeance could make him reckless. James Potter had showed him up too many times, beating him in the classroom and the Quidditch field. He might well take a chance and try to do him a serious injury.

Though nobody would ever prove it hadn't been an accident, not everyone would be fooled. People would start watching Malfoy, and sooner or later all five of them would be caught. Sev had to intercede, without actually saying out loud "Don't try to hurt him". Malfoy was apt to react against that kind of advice by insisting he knew better.

He thought quickly. "Lucius. I have a spell for you."

Malfoy's grin widened. "Really? Do tell."

Sev whispered the word in his ear, and smiled thinly at him. "Trust me, that'll give Potter the shock of his life. And I think Professor Malachite will definitely... appreciate it."

Malfoy flashed him another wicked grin in return, probably not understanding what he meant but willing to trust him. He had come to rely on Snape's advice, which was all to the good. The more useful Sev made himself in the minor things, the less his loyalty would ever be questioned.

The room fell silent as the two boys faced off against each other. Malfoy gave his trademark mocking smile, and Potter returned it. Potter was perhaps less arrogant than Malfoy, but he had no lack of confidence in himself, and he believed in his own invincibility.

Professor Vitae raised her wand, then paused and turned to Malfoy. "Mr. Malfoy; play nice, if you please." Malfoy just gave her an innocent look, but Malachite scowled at the insinuation. Vitae gave him a smile that looked a lot like the ones the two duellists had exchanged.

"When I give the signal-" she ordered sternly. But she barely had time to wave her wand before conflicting shouts cracked through the air.

"_Serpensortia_!" cried Malfoy. The whole room gasped as a huge black serpent boiled out of the end of his wand and lunged towards Potter.

James was shocked into jumping backwards, but he was so quick off the mark that his spell was already flying towards Malfoy. "_Petrificus Totalus_!" Malfoy thudded heavily to the ground, completely paralysed.

Unfortunately for James, that meant that the serpent was no longer under what little control Malfoy might have wielded. The assembled audience scattered as the long snake rippled towards Potter at lightning speed, and then pulled back, in preparation to strike.

Professor Vitae seemed frozen by surprise, making no move to rescue her prize student from harm's way. James himself couldn't reach for his wand - a sudden movement would certainly bring the snake down upon him.

Abruptly, a hissing sound snapped through the air. The serpent drew away as if startled, and then snaked across the floor to coil around Professor Malachite's feet. Ignoring the amazed stares, he calmly lifted the creature from the floor and allowed it wrap itself around his shoulders.

"Snakes," he said mildly, "are nothing to be frightened of - if you know how to handle them properly." He produced his wand from the folds of his cloak, and used it to free Malfoy from the full-body bind. He absently patted the snake on the head, and it blinked up at him blissfully. "I think," he said to Professor Vitae, "We'll have to call this one a draw. Now, all of you get to your afternoon lessons, while I send this little fellow back where he came from."

Malfoy got to his feet and scrambled over to Sev's side, shooting Potter a dark look. "Did you see?" he asked Sev excitedly. "He's a Parselmouth!"

"No wonder he's always going on about being nasty to serpents," observed Avery.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't until just prior to Christmas that the young Death Eaters' mission-statement changed. The first the boys all knew of it was when Malfoy gathered them together in their dorm one evening.

"What is it, Lucius?" asked Avery eagerly. The duelling club had brought hostilities with James Potter and his followers to boiling point, and the boys were itching for some action.

"We have," said Malfoy triumphantly, "a chance to prove our value."

"A mission?" asked Colin. Malfoy smiled.

"A mission," he confirmed. The boys all leaned in excitedly.

"Tell us, Lucius," Colin urged.

"I've just received word from the Death Eaters. Two Aurors are meeting tomorrow night in Hogsmeade, and we're to spy on them. They feel that if _we_ are caught, then people will just assume we're Hogwarts kids fooling around." Malfoy's grey eyes grew steely. "But we _won't_ be caught." Severus suspected that anybody who proved him a liar would not have a very good time of it.

"Hogsmeade?" Colin frowned uneasily. "How are we supposed to get down there at night?"

"Oh, there are ways," Malfoy said airily. "Passages. Some the teachers know about; some they don't. I bet Sev could tell us one or two."

"Half a dozen," Snape confirmed. More than that, even; the combination of midnight prowling and reading old books had taught him more about Hogwarts' secrets than was known to anyone bar perhaps Dumbledore. But he wouldn't share _all_ of his knowledge with Malfoy.

"How are we supposed to spy on them?" Colin asked, looking worried. "Did they say?"

Malfoy shot him a scathing look. "We're supposed to use our initiative, Crabbe. I'm aware that you don't have any, but the rest of us will try to make up for it."

"Are we all going?" asked Avery. Malfoy nodded.

"I may need any one of you. You all have your uses." Avery and Crabbe both brightened under the praise, although it was delivered more as if Malfoy thought of them as tools than co-conspirators.

Truly enough, the group had worked together long enough to slip easily into their established roles. Lucius was leader, charismatic and decisive; Crabbe had his thieving skills, and when occasion demanded it brute strength. Avery was devious and the most adept at charming people, and Simon was... well, pretty damn scary, actually.

Sev, with his skills for reading people, knew that the quiet, detached boy was probably even more dangerous than either his friends or enemies realised. Simon Lestrange, with his dead eyes and disturbing mannerisms, was a serial killer waiting to happen. Like many such psychopathic individuals, he had a streak of cold-edged cunning that drove him to seek out company where his leanings would go unnoticed for longest. He would be a Death Eater, probably a much-applauded one, but it would never be belief in their holy mission that drove him to commit atrocities.

However, the operation they plotted now was not assault, deception or murder, but an altogether sneakier mandate. In situations like this, there was only one advisor Malfoy turned to.

"Severus. What do you suggest?"

"You know the place?" Malfoy gave him the address, and Sev nodded thoughtfully. Where other students might use their Hogsmeade weekends to load up on sweets and magical gadgets, Sev had used a number of his to study the village as methodically as he had done the school. The only fully-magical community in England, Hogsmeade had a few little surprises that could trip up the unwary.

A lot of Ministry folks had made their homes in Hogsmeade. Particularly in such dark times, those in the more dangerous departments preferred to keep the kind of protective charms that would cause a lot of trouble if a Muggle accidentally set them off. With Hogwarts students frequently running amok and restrictions on use of magic considerably slackened, Hogsmeade could be a chaotic extremely place to live. Once you got out of the school grounds themselves, it was relatively easy to go undetected.

"I have some ideas," Sev agreed. It was late, but he stood up to leave. "I'll go and get some books; there are a few charms I want to take a look at."

It was too late to head down to the library, but that wasn't where he was going anyway. As far back as the first year, Professor Malachite had recognised Sev's superior brain-power, and permitted him access to the bookshelves in the Dark Arts office. This would seem most likely a sneaky way of advancing a promising Slytherin above students from other houses, but Sev was wary of taking any such favour at face value.

Nonetheless, even if there were unseen strings attached it was more than worthwhile. Sev hadn't been lying to Voldemort when he said that the one thing he wanted was knowledge. He would read up on any subject given the chance, but the Dark Arts tomes were especially enticing, for many of them were rare editions that contained spells and information you might not find anywhere else.

He had no worries of being disturbed by Malachite. He had learned early on in his unauthorised wanderings that the Dark Arts teacher was a creature of strong habit. Sev had heard Professor Vitae being snippy about the fact that he had somehow procured a luxury bathtub for his personal quarters, and it appeared that he preferred to wind down of an evening with a long relaxing soak. Once he had settled in for the night, so the staff joke went, it would take more than the end of the world to shift him.

Night patrols of the corridors had been intensified this year, but the teachers' offices weren't a target area. Sev had a free pass that worked as well in the night as it did during the day, but anybody else would be a fool to try to get in; all of the offices were magically alarmed and protected. The night patrols were geared more towards keeping students from mischief than protecting the school; despite everything, the staff remained firmly convinced that they were all safe here.

When it came to sneaking about on his own terms, Sev had one particular charm that had served him well. It wasn't precisely invisibility, but rather a spell to make him go unnoticed by a casual observer, provided he was standing still. That would no doubt be extremely useful in spy work, but he wasn't sure he wanted to share it just yet. The pseudo-invisibility was useless if somebody knew to scan their surroundings in search of someone under it, and he didn't yet want to hand Malfoy that advantage.

However, there were plenty of other little enchantments in Malachite's books that could come in handy. When Dark wizards weren't actively killing people, they were generally trying to sneak about.

For Sev himself, said sneaking had always been second nature, and when his reading was interrupted by voices in the corridor outside, he immediately dimmed the light and sat in darkness. He had always had sharp hearing; his uncle had joked when he was younger that it was nature's way of compensating for his almost unnatural silence.

He placed the voices fairly quickly; and why not, when he heard each of them lecturing several times a week? Professors Ephemeria and Fractalis.

"-about this, Janeida," Fractalis was saying nervously. "What if someone- well, what if I'm caught? I wouldn't, um, I wouldn't have a clue what to say."

"Oh, relax, Trigo," the Potions teacher assured him. "All you have to do is tell them you're out checking the wards on the grounds. After all, you're the one that put them there in the first place."

"In the middle of the night?"

She laughed lightly. "Why not? They all know you're nervous enough. Besides..." Sev could picture the wryly amused smirk she used to gently mock people in Potions class - "who'd ever believe it of _you_?"

Fractalis laughed then, a deep, rich, almost musical sound that was a world away from his usual dryly nervous chuckle. "Indeed. Not even me, and that's the truth." Still laughing, the two of them passed further down the corridor and out of earshot.

* * *

"So how many of these places _are_ there?" asked Avery, as the three of them snuck through the darkened passage. Malfoy had elected to only bring Sev and Avery along; Colin knew all about sneaking, but he wasn't the best at thinking quickly, and Simon Lestrange could become extremely dangerous if allowed to get bored.

"A fair number," Sev admitted. He suspected that even _he_ didn't know the full extent of Hogwarts' hidden passages, although he probably knew a great deal more than most. The shifting architecture of the castle hardly helped; there were passages that might only be there on the day of the new moon, or on Wednesdays, or once every five-hundred and forty-seven years. If the cycle was idiosyncratic enough, there was no way to guess it.

Some passages, though, were more permanent in nature. The desire to sneak down to Hogsmeade had been present ever since Hogwarts students had been restricted in the times they could go there. The teachers, who had mostly been students here themselves when they were younger, knew about a lot of them, but not all.

One of the undetected ones led into the back of Honeydukes, but that was hardly practical for a midnight spying mission. If you were caught in a sweet shop in the middle of the night, it would be fairly difficult to get anyone to believe you were breaking _out_. Others Sev knew or suspected were being monitored. Sneaking out one time on a Saturday might go unremarked, but the same offence late on a school night would not be taken so lightly.

And so, they used this passage. This, Sev was sure, was the least known of all of the Hogsmeade entrances - except perhaps for one of which he himself had only vague suspicions. Putting together James and his friends sneaking under the Whomping Willow and the 'spirits' that haunted the Shrieking Shack at the full moon, he had a fairly good idea of where that little passageway went.

However, Severus was pretty certain James and his pack didn't know about this one. How could they? The statue that hid the passage would only step aside for the tongue-teaser of a password "Slytherins sneak superbly". Even had the Gryffindors known it, their pride would prevent them from speaking the words.

The Auror's house looked like any other in the street it stood in. However, its defences were both more subtle and more powerful. Sev stopped the three of them a short way away. "Repeat after me," he whispered. "I, Severus Snape, honestly declare that it is my purpose at this house tonight to eavesdrop on the conversation within."

The other two boys looked at him strangely, but echoed the same declaration. As they passed through the gates, the Dishonetectors mounted on the gateposts quivered, then lay still. Malfoy registered what was happening, and gave Snape a brief nod and a smirk. An artefact to detect dishonest visitors wouldn't tag one who _admitted_ they were there to spy.

They wouldn't be able to get inside the building, but that didn't matter. Sev had been down to Dervish and Banges earlier in the year for a handy device for hard-of-hearing wizards. Designed to magically read lips, it had one distinct advantage over the old-fashioned method: it worked just as well whether the person in question was facing you or not. All they needed was a clear line of sight into the house.

They got it from a large tree in the house's back garden. Sev cast a quick charm that would cause anybody who looked up into the branches to become immediately distracted. It was a handy trick that he'd developed from a hex Malfoy had used to get Potter in trouble in Potions. He'd adapted it from making a specific person unable to concentrate to making a specific place impossible to concentrate _on_. It had been simple enough to combine the original hex with the same spell that made a location unplottable.

Malfoy was the first to spot a seeming flaw in the plan. "They're having a secret meeting, Severus. Unless they're even more moronic than you'd expect, they'll draw the curtains."

Sev nodded. "I can fix that. But not until he's inside."

They had been told that the Auror's contact would be arriving at midnight, and he arrived three minutes later. He made a thorough sweep of the grounds as he approached, but somehow whenever his eyes or his wand pointed up at the tree, they seemed to slide off again. Avery gave Sev a surreptitious thumbs up.

The Auror met his visitor at the backdoor, and the magic lipreader dutifully reported the whispered passwords. Avery scribbled them down on a scroll, but Sev needed no such memory aid. Everything he needed to recall would stay in his memory for as long as he wanted it to. So would everything he _didn't_ need, but he had learned to live with that.

As soon as the curtains were pulled, Sev dropped lightly down from the tree and sped light-footed to the rear window. He drew his wand and flicked it at the curtains with the whisper "_Monoculous!_" Immediately, the cloth of the curtains turned as transparent as the window they covered, and they could see inside.

"I hope for all our sakes' that's one-way," Malfoy said dryly. Avery had other things on his mind.

"Would that work on the wall of the girls' bathroom?" he asked hopefully.

* * *

The magical lipreader reported every word the two men spoke in low whispers. It was a little disconcerting, in some ways; it felt as if the Aurors were not in a room thirty feet away, but standing right behind them.

"Aradin," said the house's owner with a small smile. "I should have known they'd send you."

"Naturally," shrugged the Auror Aradin modestly.

"Moody busy?"

"He's still in Albania, Gorvic. He won't be coming back for a cakewalk." The name rang an instant bell in Sev's brain, although he had last heard it a year ago. Gorvic Shimmersby had been the Ministry contact of Professor Cuero, the undercover Auror who had posed as a teacher at Hogwarts.

"This is hardly a cakewalk, my friend," said Gorvic tightly. It was hard to see his face from this distance, but his body language was angry.

"Hush, friend. I know you're still angry about Euphrates."

"It was a monumental cock-up!" Shimmersby snapped. "Euphrates Cuero was a top agent. The Death Eaters should never have been able to find him."

"Well, they did. And they still have a man inside. Which is why Dumbledore's so insistent that we do this. Three batteries of tests," he explained, becoming more business-like. "January, March, and late June. He wants his staff to see everything we can bring, and learn how to adapt to it."

"This is a new one on me," Shimmersby reflected wryly. "I've never had to _attack_ an institution before."

"I know what you mean," Aradin agreed. "Breaking into Hogwarts; who'd have thought it?"

"If we don't, they will," Gorvic said darkly. "So what do we know about the defences?"

"They're pretty elaborate," his fellow Auror admitted. "That Fractalis is an absolute genius for wards; never seen an Arithmancer like it. Dumbledore's taken a personal hand in some of it, I think, and Vitae and Malachite have been setting up the rest of the charms."

"Together?" asked Shimmersby, with a raised eyebrow. They shared a brief chuckle.

"Quite," agreed Aradin. "No, they've always hated each other, those two. Even back at school. Malachite was quite the favourite of old Dippet's, you know - even though he was a Slytherin."

"Yes, I remember how sore Ellida used to get over that. After all, she was well on course to top of the school until he transferred over in the fourth year."

"Yes, I remember that. Where did he come in from again?"

"I don't think he ever said. Word was he was a 'Strang boy - that would explain why he got put in Slytherin."

"Yes." Aradin chuckled suddenly. "Remember the end of year ceremony for that year? First time in Hogwarts history the head boy and head girl had to be restrained from killing each other."

They chuckled over that memory, and then got down to business. Avery scribbled down all the defences and possible counter-spells they talked over, whilst Sev pondered the situation thoughtfully. The Death Eaters must have known what was going to be discussed at this meeting, and they could only have sent the boys here for one reason.

The Death Eaters were going to stage a raid on Hogwarts.


	4. Chapter 4

Severus spent a long time pondering why the Death Eaters might choose to tip their hand by making a move against Hogwarts. It made little sense from a military point of view; the staff were indeed all at the top end of their respective fields, but there were others in the Ministry who were their equals, and better trained for battle.

The only target worth taking down was Dumbledore himself, and Voldemort would have to be a bigger fool than Sev knew him to be to try and attack him here at Hogwarts. Even should the Death Eaters manage to get him isolated and defenceless, their chances of overcoming him were minuscule; to launch an offensive against him in the magical building whose secrets he'd been learning for half a century was literal suicide.

If Voldemort had any brains - and Sev was certain he did - then he would stage the raid when Dumbledore was away from the school. The Death Eaters couldn't help to hold the building, and it wasn't a smart way to go after specific enemies.

That meant that the point of the raid was not practical gain at all, but rather psychological. They had already put the terror into the hearts of many students and parents by demonstrating that they could cause chaos by stealth; prove that they could succeed in a full-frontal assault, and all hell would break loose.

If fears for student safety caused a mass exodus from Hogwarts, the effects would be far-reaching and catastrophic. There were only three wizarding academies still operating in Europe, and Durmstrang was already in the hands of the Death Eaters. Beauxbatons was the newest of the three schools, and if Hogwarts could be penetrated then it didn't have a prayer.

Shatter the wizarding academies, and the Death Eaters already had their greatest wish; the prevention of Muggle-born wizards from ever realising their powers. Without the schools to screen for potential wizards, the 'mudbloods' would never even discover what they were.

Sev doubted that even the most successful raid would accomplish all that. Even so, it would be a huge exercise in intimidation, and that was an end in itself. If Sev's meeting with the Death Eater leader had shown him one thing, it was that Voldemort knew all about the value of causing fear. In some ways, it was like Sev's own strategy in convincing the school he followed Malfoy; blurring the line between what he had been seen to do and what people believed him capable of.

Let the Death Eaters take the advantage this early in the game, and the war might be as good as won. On the other hand, preventing the raid was a bad idea. To do so would be as good as telling Voldemort to his face that one of his information-gatherers was a spy.

No, it would be far better to let it go ahead - and be successfully repulsed. Voldemort would have no reason to suspect his plans had been anticipated, and faith in Hogwarts would be if anything renewed.

So the question became how to achieve that. The obvious solution would be to give a warning - but the only safe person to send it to was Dumbledore, and there was no way to do that anonymously. He preferred to keep that particular avenue for a much more desperate last resort.

Dumbledore was both discreet and fully trustworthy, but when a secret became shared between two people it didn't matter who they were. The only fully secure way to keep a secret was to share it with nobody.

Sev had already broken that rule twice, but Josh was well removed from the thick of things, and he could avoid Lily as long as he needed to. It wouldn't be near so simple to duck the Hogwarts headmaster if he wanted to talk.

He would handle this, as was his fashion, alone in the dark.

Right at the moment, that description was quite literal; he had suggested that the three of them split up and stagger their returns to Hogwarts, with him coming in last. Ostensibly this was to reduce the risk of being noticed, but in truth he had just wanted the solitude. Tightened security had made it difficult to take the late-night strolls he was inclined towards, and he was glad of the opportunity.

However, back at Hogwarts it was much easier to tell whether or not you were the only one creeping about in the middle of the night. There would be much more advance warning if you were about to, for instance, turn a corner and run straight into James Potter.

"Snape!"

James reared back in surprise. Though Sev hadn't expected to see him, he wouldn't quite say he was 'surprised'. It wasn't the shock of shocks to find out James Potter didn't always stay tucked up in bed like a good little boy.

"Potter," he said calmly. "Where are all your little friends? They wouldn't let you go out in the dark _by yourself_, would they?"

With rather impeccable timing, Sirius, Pete and Remus suddenly emerged from a side street and pulled up short at the sight of him. Snape offered James a thin and mocking smile.

"What the hell are you doing out here, Snape?" he demanded hotly. Sev had learned quickly that borrowing from Malfoy's smug superiority was an excellent way to rub James up the wrong way.

"The little snake - he's spying on us!" It didn't take anything so complex to set off Sirius Black. 'Loitering whilst being in house Slytherin' was generally enough of an offence.

"Yes, Black, I live for the vicarious thrill of your lives," he said dryly. "I don't know what I'd do with myself if I didn't have the excitement of following you four around."

Sirius looked just about ready to explode. James was affecting to be unimpressed, whilst behind him Peter spoiled the effect by jittering nervously up and down. Remus, hanging back as he usually did during conflicts, looked suspiciously like he was trying not to smirk.

"Oh come on, man, you followed us," said James, rolling his eyes. "What the hell else would you be doing out here?"

Sev decided to chance his arm with a cutting remark.

"Maybe I'm trying to find out what haunts the Shrieking Shack." He locked eyes pointedly with Lupin as he said it. The mousy-haired boy did a credible job of keeping an impassive face, but Sev could read it anyway.

"You're out of your league here, Snape," James said warningly, stepping forwards to invade his personal space. As an intimidation tactic, it didn't work awfully well, because he was actually about half an inch the shorter of the two, and Sev was _much_ better at holding someone's gaze without blinking. "You should toddle off home back to bed before you get hurt."

"By you?" Snape made his point succinctly with a snort of amusement.

"By all of us," said Black darkly, stepping in to join his friend. Sirius _was_ taller, quite a way so, but Snape simply gave him an obnoxious smile and then ignored him.

"You should keep your pet here under better control, Potter," he said to James. "Big dumb animals that play with snakes usually live to regret it."

"You should keep your _mouth_ under control, Snape," suggested Sirius, pushing him backwards.

"I quite agree," he said, stepping back calmly and making a show of wiping the front of his robes. "After all, I wouldn't want to end up with a case of that spitting thing you're doing there."

That was enough to snap him, and he lunged forwards - magic forgotten in favour of a good old-fashioned brawl - but James pulled him back. "Leave it, Sirius," he said, although it came out more a command than a suggestion. "Much as I'd like to see him wake up the hospital wing tomorrow morning, he's not worth the hassle we'd get for being out at night. Right now, it's just his word against ours."

"Yes, Potter, I really would turn myself in just to get you four idiots in trouble." Sev shook his head in over-acted disbelief. "You seem to be harbouring the delusion that you actually matter somewhat to me; I'd suggest you lose it." He smiled sardonically. "It may shock you to hear this, but the fact that you get dizzy if you think too fast _isn't_ proof that the universe revolves around you."

Slytherin tradition of getting the last line satisfied, he turned on his heel and walked away.

* * *

It was only thanks to his light-footed nature that Sev became aware of the very quiet scuffling behind him as he made his way back to the secret passage. Someone was following him, and with far too little ruckus for it to be one of the Gryffindor boys he'd just left behind.

He didn't look over his shoulder, or try to catch them out by stopping suddenly; such methods were far more likely to alert the follower than give much chance of catching them. Besides, if it was who he suspected it was, looking back would do him little good.

Instead, he waited until he had ducked into the Hogsmeade end of the secret passage. He closed the door behind him, and rather than going onwards simply leaned against the wall in the shadows and waited.

Sure enough, a respectable lead-time later, the secret door opened... and then closed. It appeared to do so by itself, but Snape wasn't fooled.

"You may as well show yourself," he suggested to the empty air. "I know you're there."

"Of course you do." With a rustle of cloth, Lily emerged from under the invisibility cloak. She cracked a sarcastic smile. "You are the great Severus Snape, and you know everything."

"Indeed I do," he nodded, "although the workings of your brain are a mystery for greater minds than mine, should they exist."

"Oh, surely not," she mocked gently, and Sev shrugged.

"Any particular reason you're here, or do you do this for fun?"

She waved the bunched-up cloak at him. "You can't give somebody a gift, and not expect them to use it."

"Do you often follow your boyfriend and his friends when they sneak out in the middle of the night?"

"Firstly, he's not my boyfriend. And secondly, only when they develop testosterone problems and get this idea that only boys can sneak out at night."

"So you follow them and see what they're up to?" He raised a fine eyebrow. "I imagine _that's_ a thrilling occupation."

"It just got more interesting," she countered. "Care to explain what you're doing out here? Unlike James and Sirius, I _know_ you've got better things to do with your time than follow them around to cause trouble."

"Apart from anything else, that implies that Sirius Black and James Potter require outside intervention to be in trouble."

"Nice dodge. Try again, with answers to the question," she suggested pointedly.

"Unlike your little friends, I'm out here on business," he told her.

"Malfoy's business?" she guessed. He inclined his head in a slight nod.

"His... amongst others."

"So you're on the in, then?" Lily said. "These... Death Eaters... have taken you in?" Obviously, she'd heard the rumours that were flying about.

"I think you'll find that I've taken _them_ in," he corrected.

"Modest, aren't we?" she observed. That didn't merit a reply. "No, but I've been thinking," she continued a moment later.

"Oh, dear God," interjected Snape.

"-Quiet. I've been thinking. All these things that have happened on school grounds... they've got somebody, haven't they? Somebody on the inside. There are Death Eaters at Hogwarts."

"More of them than you think." Sev stepped forwards, and pulled back his sleeve to show her the Dark Mark. She gave an involuntary gasp, and looked up at him with worry in her dark green eyes.

"Sev..." she said haltingly. "Are you... are you _totally_ sure you know what you're doing?"

He shrugged, lightly. "I always do," he reminded her. "More to the point, I'm the only one that does, aside from you and Joshua Matthews. He's not here, and you're not stupid. None of us three is going to be giving me away."

Lily looked like she wanted to argue, but she bit her lower lip and said nothing. After a moment of silence, she said "Who is it, then? The Death Eater. The main one, the senior guy. Not Malfoy and his gang of rent-a-thugs."

"I don't know."

She blinked. "That's a first."

"I have my suspicions," he elaborated.

"You always have your suspicions. Nobody's safe from you; I'll bet even Dumbledore's in the frame."

"No, I ruled him out a few days ago."

She laughed, and then said suddenly "I've missed you. You're twisted in all the right ways."

"And you're twisted in several wrong ones."

"Takes all sorts to make a world, you know." She hefted the invisibility cloak, as they neared the Hogwarts end of the tunnel. "I should be getting back."

"Yes, you should," he agreed shortly. She laughed again.

"What, no chivalrous offer to walk me back to my dorm?"

"Yes, because sneaking around by the Gryffindor girls' dorm is _exactly_ where I want to get caught by Pringle."

"I don't know," said Lily, smiling; "might be a good idea to get some rumours started. Add to your aura of mystique."

"It'd put your boyfriend's nose out of joint."

"He's not my boyfriend."

"So you frequently protest."

They went their separate ways.

* * *

Malfoy was waiting up for him in the boys' dorm; Avery had long-since dozed off.

"You're late," he observed, with calculated neutrality.

A lie was never so good as a half-truth. "I ran into some... complications in Hogsmeade."

"Complications?"

"Potter and his little gang."

"Potter?" Malfoy looked furious. "That little Muggle-lover pops up entirely too much for my liking. We can't have him interfering with our operations, Severus. That could ruin everything."

"There's not a lot you can do about him, Lucius," Sev pointed out. "The whole school knows you're enemies. If anything happens..."

"If anything happens, it'll have to be possible to blame it fairly and squarely on somebody else," Malfoy completed. Sev nodded slightly, wondering what he was plotting.

"Who exactly did you have in mind?"

Malfoy smirked. "Oh, there's a little... event... going down in the near future. Some friends of ours are gonna be coming over, and I don't know, I think we might just be able to persuade them to give us a bit of a hand."

He smiled tigerishly, and lay back in his bed.


	5. Chapter 5

As one of the very few to risk staying at Hogwarts over winter in these troubling times, Sev was in a fine position to take advantage of the teachers' somewhat looser lips. The testing of the school's defences that was to take place had not been generally announced, but the staff seemed quite willing to discuss it in front of the small scattering of students who shared their table over Christmas.

"Impregnable!" insisted Professor Vitae loudly. "No one gets past _my_ defences, of that I assure you." Malachite pulled off the fairly clever trick of radiating scepticism without so much as pulling a face.

"No fortress is impregnable, my dear Ellida," Professor Dumbledore corrected gently. "But ours, I feel, is closer than most. These tests will only serve to point out to us where any weaknesses may lie."

"Not in _my_ sector," insisted Professor Vitae, scowling at Malachite.

Malachite smirked down at his plate. "Well, we wouldn't presume to argue with your supreme authority on that, would we?"

"I feel that our greatest strength lies, as ever, in pulling together," said Dumbledore, with a sly smile.

"We're doomed," said Professor Ephemeria, and a nervous titter ran through the table.

The whole staff seemed a trifle uneasy at the idea of strangers coming onto school grounds and poking holes in their defences. There had always been tensions between school and Ministry. The teachers liked to set themselves up as experts in their respective fields, and there was a certain amount of friction with Ministry of Magic people who believed their own work to be far more important.

Certainly, Dumbledore's dream of everybody working together against their common enemy was far from the reality. Even in the paranoia that was sweeping the wizard world, people found it easier to indulge in old, petty rivalries than face up to the fact that there was a _real_ enemy out there.

The first test was scheduled for early January, before the rest of the student body returned. Sev considered sending an owl to Malfoy to say as much, but he was certain the Death Eater on staff had already alerted those who needed to know. With Aurors studying the school, it was a senseless risk to send unnecessary messages.

As the scheduled day approached, Sev had been contemplating various ways to observe as much as possible, but he turned out not to need them. A knock on the door of his empty dorm on the morning revealed Professor Malachite.

"Professor," he nodded. "You were looking for me?" There was no other reason for the head of house to be wandering the dorms. There were only three Slytherins still in residence.

"Ah, Severus. No doubt you're aware what's going on later today?" Snape nodded. "I thought perhaps you'd appreciate a chance to see for yourself."

Regardless of Malachite's motives in offering it to him, it was an opportunity not to be missed. "Yes, Professor, I'd be interested to see that."

"I rather thought you might," he smiled triumphantly. "Come to my office about two o'clock; the tests are due to start shortly afterwards."

That afternoon, Sev reported at Malachite's office as ordered. The teacher had pushed back the furniture to lay out a large black sheet, upon which were glowing coloured symbols laid over a plan view of the grounds. "I don't suppose you've seen one of these before?" said Malachite.

"I assume it's a Spellograph," replied Snape. He hadn't seen one before, of course, since they were highly specialised Ministry tools, although he had read of them.

"Yes. Handy little thing. Plots every spell currently taking effect on Hogwarts grounds."

"But not in the castle itself," Sev observed, although he knew the reason why. Malachite laughed.

"A Spellograph, on this place? Why not daub the sheet with multicoloured paint and have done with it?" The level of background magic inside Hogwarts was far too huge for such a device to pick out any single spell. It would be just as useless in the grounds, if not for the rigidly employed controls in place; staff, students, and outsiders were all prohibited from using any kind of active magic during the hours of the test.

"I take it these are the wards already in place?" Sev asked, indicating the unmoving coloured symbols already drawn.

"Yes. They're coloured in accordance with who drew them up; green are mine, naturally, and the blue are Trigo's and the red Ellida's." Either he had forgotten he was talking to a student, or he had abandoned the usual rules of formality for the day. "The gold were drawn up by Dumbledore himself, and that thick silver line is the Hogwarts anti-Apparating shield."

The little spell-symbols differed not just in colour, but in style, too. Malachite's green symbols had an organic, coiled-up look, much like the serpents he was so fond of. Vitae's formed delicate laceworks, and Fractalis's wards were incredibly complex geometric patterns. Dumbledore's own designs looked painfully simplistic against the rest, and yet they glowed more brightly than anything else on the page.

"Ah, here we are," spoke up Malachite, as two small dots appeared on the schematic. "The Aurors have arrived."

"Some kind of locator charm?" Sev surmised. The teacher nodded.

"Smart boy. This map shows any kind of spell, so a simple magical pulse allows us to follow their position."

"Who's doing the test?" he asked. He suspected it was the two Aurors they'd been observing before Christmas, but best to have it confirmed.

"Gorvic Shimmersby and Aradin Mulsworth. From the Ministry of Magic."

"Naturally."

The two of them lapsed into silence to watch the dots cautiously approach the school's defences. Malachite reached out to tap each of the circles with his wand tip, and muttered "Text labels." Immediately each circle grew a little silver label which read 'Pulse emitter'. That was another very handy feature of Spellograph maps - they could isolate and identify any registered spell and explain which had been used.

"What if they use non-standard spells?" Snape asked.

Malachite smiled, as if pleased that he was asking intelligent questions. "The Spellograph is designed to check first whether it's a variation of one of the spells in its list. If not, then it gives it a label like 'unknown hex one' or 'unknown charm two'."

"So it can distinguish between the same unknown spell used twice, and two different unknown spells?"

"Exactly." Malachite nodded approvingly. "I see you have a head for this kind of work." The circles on the map started moving again, and they both leaned in to pay closer attention.

Professor Malachite seemed happy to have someone to discuss his insights with. He crowed with delight when one of Professor Vitae's wards went down, and groaned in dismay when the same happened to one of his own. He was constantly asking Sev for his opinion; whether the Aurors' approach would work, what they were doing wrong, where the flaws in the defences were. Sev, for his part, shared as much of his insights as he thought he ought to, avoiding discussion of any topics he really didn't want Malachite to know he knew about.

He could see from the things they tried that the Aurors were well-trained in this kind of work, but they didn't have an attack mentality. They were more inclined to delicately step around things than blast through them; they would rather undo a knot than cut through it. That meant that Hogwarts was learning better ways to repulse a sneak attack, but not an all-out one.

However, in the current situation that seemed sensible. The Death Eaters simply didn't have enough people to storm Hogwarts; or at least, not without dealing with the Ministry first. So a sneak attack it would be.

By the end of the allotted time session, the Aurors had neutralised a number of the wards, but not all of them. They'd managed to set off two of the more complex magical alarms, both belonging to Fractalis.

"Impossible to defuse, those things," Malachite observed. "The man's a genius in his field, but Arithmancy has its limits. You might not be able to go through his wards, but you can still go around."

"The Aurors were trying to defeat _all_ the defences," Sev agreed. "A real attacker would only be trying to get in."

"Exactly." Malachite snapped his fingers. "The very best net of defences can't beat dumb luck. If they can breach the outer ward, they might avoid tripping any of the other alarms purely by chance."

_Or by design._ Everything the staff and the Aurors had thought up had failed to take into account one important factor - the presence of traitors on the _inside_. The student Death Eaters might not have the wherewithal to shut down any of the defences, but the one on the staff could - and, having watched on a Spellograph, they now knew exactly where to find the ones they _couldn't_ remove.

It all came down, once again, to Dumbledore's fatal character flaw - trust. He wanted his staff to pull together, but in giving them all the information to do so, he shared it with the one who was pulling the other way.

_At_ least _one,_ corrected the quiet little voice at the back of Sev's brain that kept him ahead of the game. Just because he knew there to be one Death Eater amongst the staff didn't mean there was _only_ one.

His list of suspects wasn't growing any shorter. Of the four he'd originally tagged to top the list, only Professor Ephemeria wasn't involved in maintaining the school's defences - and she appeared to have formed some kind of connection with Professor Fractalis. If she was the spy, he could be wittingly or unwittingly assisting her.

Malachite's motives were as hard to divine as ever. He was, as always, sharing more information than he ought to, but it was still hard to guess whether he expected Sev to use it for the school, or against it.

Malachite was not a stupid man. It was possible he knew nothing of Malfoy's group, and had simply judged Sev not to be Death Eater material. It was equally possible he knew Sev was with the Death Eaters, and expected him to be working for them. And it was just about conceivable that he had twigged both Sev's purported loyalties, and his real ones.

Either way, he was grooming Snape for _something_, and until he knew what it was, Severus was going to have to tread _very_ carefully.

But then, he always did.

* * *

When Malfoy returned for the new term, Sev briefed him on everything he'd learned; it would be worse than stupid to hold things back when there was somebody else reporting their own version. Malfoy might believe the assignments they were given to be vital to the cause, but to Sev they smacked of back-up work - retrieving information the Death Eaters already had, and in the process showing their abilities and loyalties.

"So the next dummy-raid's in the holidays as well?" Malfoy asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Sev nodded.

"Right at the start of the Easter break. The final one'll be in term-time, thought; towards the end of June."

"Exam time?" Malfoy guessed.

"Yes. They want a time when the grounds will be as empty as possible, to minimise the background magic."

"You've got the exact dates? I'd like to pass them on. I think this June test presents... possibilities."

Sev clicked to Malfoy's meaning immediately. After all, it was a piece of deviousness almost worthy of himself. On the test dates, the staff would be fully expecting people to be attacking their defences. So what if that dummy raid was replaced with a real one...?

It made sense. More to the point, it was what _he_ would do. And he strongly suspected that Voldemort had a knack for deviousness that ran nearly as deep as his own.

There were no more missions set for the fledgling Death Eaters: only the ever-present orders to 'watch the staff carefully'. Doing so was less than easy, however. Tensions between Malfoy and Potter's group had once again flared up, thanks in no small part to the duelling club, and Snape's encounter with them in Hogsmeade. It was almost impossible to go anywhere without running into a Gryffindor ambush, or at least being spied on.

Malfoy was a tower of spitting fury. "Potter! He's everywhere! Something has to be done about him."

"So you said," Sev pointed out impassively. "But we can't touch him. Especially not with his gang of friends following him everywhere."

"No, but I've been thinking. It happens that our... associates would like to stir things up a little. How much more stirred can you get than something happening to our _star pupil_?" Malfoy spat the words bitterly; Potter was beating him in a number of classes, and Sev gathered his parents weren't pleased. They could stomach him losing out to a Slytherin like Snape, but not to Gryffindors like James and Lily.

"It seems to me he's always throwing himself around, trying to be heroic," Sev offered, since Malfoy seemed to be waiting for a response. "I wouldn't be surprised if he gets himself killed one day."

Malfoy smiled darkly.

"Exactly," he agreed. "And his little girlfriend, too."

* * *

The rest of the year rolled on excruciatingly slowly. Though for some the end-of-year exams came speeding up entirely too fast, it seemed to Sev like they would never arrive.

The whole school had been gripped by a fierce tension, although probably only a handful could have put their finger on why. Relations between Gryffindor and Slytherin were at their most explosive. Not only were Potter and Malfoy at war, but the feud between the heads of house was growing.

Professor Vitae seemed incredibly infuriated by Malachite's insistence on personally checking and backing up her sections of the defences. When the two of them co-hosted the duelling club, it was more a war zone than a learning opportunity, and it was a constant miracle no one was seriously injured.

In Arithmancy classes, the already scatty Professor Fractalis was completely distracted. On a dare, one of the Ravenclaw boys transfigured his hat into a lacy pink bonnet, and he was wearing it for half an hour before he even noticed.

The students were no less jittery; nobody knew when the next inter-house war would break out, and they were all still waiting for the hammer to fall. The fact that nothing deadly bad had happened this year had failed to reassure them; the Death Eaters' atmosphere of fear had already settled over them, and they were jumping at shadows.

The tension in the Death Eater camp was of a different kind. Though Malfoy was remaining close-mouthed about exactly what would happen on the day of the Aurors' test in June, he had let the group know they would be playing a part in it.

"Those two Aurors are going to be setting out for Hogwarts on the day of the test. It's our job to make sure they don't arrive."

Colin gulped. "Our job?" he said nervously.

"Partly our job," Malfoy corrected. "Our orders are simple enough, and I mean to see _nothing_ goes wrong," he said pointedly.

"What do we do?" asked Simon impassively.

"On the morning of the day of the tests, four of us will go running down to the house of the Auror Shimmersby. We're to tell him Dumbledore needs to see him about the test, and then stun him the first chance we get."

Avery looked worried. "Stun an Auror? Lucius..."

"That's why I said four of us. That should be more than sufficient to take him down. Our associate, Dolohov will be on hand to wipe his memory as soon as we knock him out, but it has to be students who come to get him or he'll be on his guard. Once we've got him, it'll be easy enough to get the other guy, and then the plan can be put into motion."

"Who's staying behind?" asked Severus.

Malfoy gave him a nod. "You are. You're supposed to be the genius here - I expect you to hold things up this end. Make sure nobody knows we're gone, and keep an eye out for anything that looks like going wrong. If you see a reason to call things off, raise the Dark Mark over the school. You saw me do that the last time, right?"

"I did," he agreed, and Malfoy nodded in acknowledgement.

"I'm trusting _you_ not to jump at shadows, and only call it off if it's really shot to hell. Clear?"

"Naturally." Malfoy was handing him the means to cancel the raid, but it would be crazy to use it. Without knowing the identity of the Death Eater on staff, there was no way he could concoct a foolproof excuse - and Sev never used excuses that weren't foolproof.

"Good," said Malfoy. He turned back to the others. "Now, you three - we're going to spend the next month stunning people until we can do it in our sleep." He grinned. "I can think of a few Gryffindors we can practise on..." They traipsed off.

So, Sev was to be left holding the fort. On the one hand, he had to protect Malfoy and co. and make sure nothing went wrong with the raid. On the other, he had to help the staff repulse the attackers, and/or attempt to prevent James and Lily from being murdered. He had to push the Death Eater agenda whilst seeming an innocent student, push his own agenda whilst seeming a loyal Death Eater, and hide both his secret agendas and the full extent of his intelligence from both sides - without complete knowledge of who was on which.

It was definitely going to be an interesting day.


	6. Chapter 6

Sev was roused before down by the sound of Malfoy rolling out of bed. "Ha! I woke you!" the blond-haired boy proclaimed delightedly. "So you _do_ sleep."

"Occasionally," Sev allowed. "Don't tell the others. They might start thinking I'm a human being."

"Small chance of that," he smirked in reply.

Malfoy might be bright and bouncy with the prospect of the day ahead, but the rest of their dorm were less than thrilled to be woken so early.

"Why do we have to get up _now_?" grumbled Avery. "We're not even _doing_ anything 'til noon."

"D'you want to be caught sneaking out?" demanded Malfoy fiercely. "You can sleep in the tunnels for all I care, but we have to be out of here before anyone else is awake to see us. We are _not_ getting caught over this." This was Malfoy's big chance, his first real command situation. Sev didn't think it was purely logic that had compelled him to leave his biggest rival in the rear-guard position. Malfoy didn't want him to be anywhere that he could grab a slice of the credit for this operation.

The other boys departed, still bickering nervously amongst themselves, and Sev settled down with a book to await their usual breakfast time.

* * *

Sev seldom ate breakfast, but this morning he went down to see the house-elves and got several rounds of toast. He also picked up the kind of full English breakfast Colin always ate, and Malfoy's favourite cereal. It took a hover charm to get it all to follow him through the corridors.

Professor Ephemeria, striding through the corridors with a harried expression, stopped him with a frown. "Where are you going with that little lot, Severus? You know you're not supposed to eat in the dorms."

"It's a revision session, Professor," he lied automatically.

The Potions professor looked stern. "Leaving it a little late, aren't you?" The fourth year exams had already started; they had only a few days to go before they were finished. Fortunately for Malfoy's little plan, it was Divination today, a class that none of the five of them took.

"It's not me who has to revise," Sev pointed out with a shrug. Professor Ephemeria looked sceptical. Teachers didn't like to admit that there were students who could get their good grades without studying; it rather poked holes in their 'if you don't work, you'll never get anywhere' spiel.

Sev didn't mind getting caught; in fact, he'd rather counted on it when he'd set the food to hovering. Although Professor Ephemeria hadn't so much as glimpsed Malfoy or the others, if anybody asked her she would now remember that they'd been huddled in their dorm, revising over breakfast.

This pretence set up, he headed for his usual early-morning haunt; the library. There was almost no one there in the summer months, at least not when it was too late to cram for exams, and it was an unmissable chance to browse the shelves in private. Nothing would be happening for several hours, and the most he was likely to do by hanging about was call attention to himself.

However, about half an hour before the tests were due to start, just as he was contemplating getting into some better position to observe, there was a complication.

Lily.

She casually breezed into the empty library and sat down across from him; exactly as if they were back in the First Year and he was still tutoring her for Potions on the quiet. Then it hadn't mattered so much if anyone might come upon her chattering away to Snape; she was new, she wasn't wizardborn, the whole Gryffindor vs. Slytherin thing might not have sunk in for her yet. Certainly it would take more than a cursory glance to get the impression Snape was even paying attention to her.

Now, though, things were different. Battle lines had long since been drawn, and Lily and Sev were not just on opposite sides but right in the thick of them.

James Potter - who, despite countless denials on both sides was very definitely something approaching a boyfriend - would have a hard time wrapping his head round the idea of Lily making friends with a Slytherin. His head would probably explode if someone added the name 'Snape'; thanks to his own anti-publicity campaign, Sev was regarded as every bit as maliciously dangerous as Malfoy - and smarter.

For Sev, the consequences of fraternising with the enemy were a little bit more severe than a little domestic strife. If talking to a Gryffindor was a hanging offence, being seen in company of a 'mudblood' was a thousand times worse. Being seen with Lily could destroy everything he'd built with the Death Eaters.

Of course, Lily wasn't stupid enough to not know that. "What do you want?" he asked without preamble.

"Answers."

"Don't we all?"

"I thought you had all of them?"

"Yes, but my parents never taught me to share." It was strange how easily they clicked into the old patterns of conversation. He and Lily just seemed to have the exact same vein of quick, dry wit, sparking off each other without thinking about it. Malfoy and Nick Avery were both far from mentally slow, but the suspicious atmosphere of their house somehow precluded quickfire banter; amongst Slytherins, words were carefully considered and weighed for the best effect. Witty banter was about give and take, but house Slytherin was about coming out on top.

"What's happening?" she demanded.

"Many, many things," he said, shovelling his books into his bag. "Anything in particular you had in mind?"

"You weren't at breakfast," she observed. "None of you."

He quirked an eyebrow. "You're watching Slytherin eating habits?"

"I'm watching Slytherins," she corrected. "Looking for patterns, and things that don't fit them; I learned that from you."

"If you'd looked a little closer, you'd have seen me going down to the kitchens to get breakfast for the five of us. What does that tell you?"

"That you went down to the kitchens, and the other four haven't been seen yet."

He couldn't help nodding in acknowledgement. "Exactly. Now, if the Hogwarts staff weren't so easily fooled, we'd have less of a problem."

"So there _is_ something going on!" she announced triumphantly. He gave her a wry look.

"Lesson two in being like me: squealing like that is not a good way to preserve your aura of knowing everything. Do you have your cloak?" She nodded and pulled it out of the bag. "Put it on. We're walking."

"Won't people notice you talking to yourself?" came Lily's muffled voice from the empty air beside him.

"They generally try to avoid getting that close," he said dryly.

"This is about those tests that are on today, isn't it?" Lily realised. She spoke quietly, but even so it was as well the corridors were quiet. Snape headed towards the outside of the building, where he knew the 'Aurors' would soon be making their arrival. "Is something going to go wrong with them?"

"No, in fact they're going to go very well. The inspectors are going to make such a good job of probing the defences they'll be inside before you know what's happening."

"Before they realise that they're actually Death Eaters," Lily breathed. He didn't need to nod to confirm it. Abruptly, he was pulled backwards as an invisible arm yanked him back into an alcove. A moment later, Lily reappeared, tugging off the cloak to stare at him. "They're going to bust into the school? They're going to break in and _you know about it_?"

He nodded briefly. "I'm their rear-guard." Sev smiled ironically. "I'm to see if anything's going wrong."

"You can call it off?" she asked, frowning.

"Not without a good excuse. A _true_ excuse. We're all Slytherins," he reminded her. "None of us trust each other."

"So, what? You're just going to let them _attack_?" Her voice was rising in disbelief, so it was just as well the corridors were empty. Lessons were cancelled for exams, and those students who didn't have Divination today were either outside soaking in the sun or back in their dorms.

"The teachers will be defending, as soon as they realise what's happening," he pointed out calmly. "This is about fear, not tactics; there'll only be two of them, so they can't hope to do too much damage. Mostly they'll be causing chaos, but they're likely to have been told to gun for any Muggle-borns. You should stay out of sight," he added as an afterthought. "Keep your cloak on."

"And do what? Twiddle my thumbs?" Lily was furious. "What about the other kids from Muggle families? They didn't happen to stop you in the corridor, so they don't get an advance warning? Sev, they could get killed!" Actually, it was more James Potter than the mudbloods who needed to watch out, but getting into that was not really the way to calm Lily down.

"Don't you remember Audley Fletcher?" he reminded her. "I'll be on hand; both sides against the middle. It's what I do."

"You mean you'll save people's lives _if_ it doesn't look like causing trouble?" She suddenly threw the bundled up cloak at him. "I've got a better idea. _You_ wear this. I'm not hiding; I'm gonna be out there waiting for them, and if they start blasting, well, I'll blast right back."

She was spoiling for an argument, but if she thought Snape was going to be like James and get stupidly overprotective, she was wrong. He simply nodded, and took the cloak. "Good idea," he agreed mildly. "This'll make things simpler."

Lily stared at him for half a second, and then snorted laughter. "God, what the hell are you? I don't know if you're a snake or a robot, but you're sure as hell cold-blooded." She shook her head. "And I like you, God help me. I don't know if that makes me even more disturbed than you are."

"Anything's possible." He pulled the cloak on as they started walking again. They reached the outside doors, and he spotted James and his friends across the grass. "Look, there are your little Gryffindor friends. I'm sure they'll be happy to join the fight with you." That killed two birds with one stone; the Gryffindors would provide unquestioning backup to Lily, and Lily would give James some warning that an attack was coming.

"And you?" she asked out of the corner of her mouth.

"I'll be on patrol." He turned away, probably leaving her wondering whether he was still walking with her or not.

The invisibility cloak certainly did make things easier. They might watch him as Severus Snape, but as an invisible presence he could easily go undetected in the chaos that would ensue. And it would be chaos - half of the school were out here sitting on the grass.

The Aurors had agreed beforehand where they would be starting, to make sure the staff didn't miss anything. The Death Eaters wouldn't dare to deviate from that; they couldn't afford to reveal themselves until they were _inside_ the defences.

Some tactical eavesdropping and knowledge of the first two tests had told Sev what to expect from the staff. There would be three teachers waiting to watch firsthand; he could see them from where he stood, Malachite, Parilia and Vitae. They were a long distance away from the actual point where the 'Aurors' would be busting in, however, watching through Omnioculars so as not to disturb anything.

Those of the staff who weren't involved with the exams would be watching on Spellographs. It was likely they wouldn't even realise when things began to go wrong; not until they started puzzling over the curses the Aurors were throwing about.

Dumbledore himself wasn't even at Hogwarts; as always in the summer, he was tied up in paperwork with the other wizarding academies. It was a grand old tradition for wizarding schools to stab each other in the back and accuse each other of making things easy on their pupils, and standards had to be agreed across the board. Given Durmstrang's involvement with Voldemort, it was likely their headmaster knew what was going on and had deliberately scheduled this meeting to keep Dumbledore out of the way.

He kept an eye on the three observing teachers, and saw when Professor Vitae made an abrupt hand gesture. Following her gaze, he spotted the two cloaked figures making their way towards the school.

Vitae must have used the _Sonorus_ spell, because suddenly her voice echoed across the field. "Students, the defence inspection is beginning! You can watch, but please keep well away from the Aurors and make no attempt to interfere with their enchantments. Thank you." Sev knew this was one of Dumbledore's ideas; some of the teachers had objected to the students being present for this test, but the headmaster believed they should have the opportunity to see how well protected their school really was.

Of course, that was rather the Death Eaters' intention too...

He watched calmly as the two Aurors cautiously approached, scanning for wards. All eyes were on them, at least until their painstaking work become too boring to follow. He glanced over at Lily to make sure she wasn't about to explode into action, and was glad to see she was under control. The Death Eaters wouldn't make their move until the defences were breached, and attacking before they revealed would be a deadly mistake.

He cast his memory back and pulled the original shape of the defences into mind. There were two rings of outer defences that had to be defused before the Death Eaters could get in; they would be able to do so, but it was picky work and take a long time. The point of the first ring was to stun or otherwise immobilise the unwary - the nastiness of the effects depending on which professor had been responsible for the particular ward you stepped on. The second was a kind of anti-curse shield, through which most spells couldn't be thrown.

Beyond those two rings, he knew, it was all magical alarms - and he doubted very much whether the Death Eaters would mind setting them off. They _wanted_ panic when they opened fire. It was the Immobilisers they had to get rid of, not the noisemakers.

The crowd soon lost interest in watching two cloaked figures carefully scanning every inch of the ground, detecting wards and then probing their nature very cautiously. Sev was intrigued by how practised they seemed at the work; clearly, somebody somewhere in the Death Eaters had Auror training.

He drifted over towards the group of Gryffindors. They were fairly close to the demonstration, and once Lily raised the alarm he could rely on the cover of their blazing spells to work his own.

"God, this is _boring_," groaned Sirius, lying flat out on his back and looking at the sky. "Can we go, yet Lil?"

"I want to watch this," she insisted, not looking at him.

"It's interesting," agreed Remus mildly. "In fact, I wonder if I can get a little closer. I'm _sure_ that's a variation of those probe charms Malachite told us about."

"Come on," agreed Lily, dragging him forward eagerly. James followed, as did the invisible Snape, but Sirius held Peter back.

"Leave 'em to it, mate," he advised, bored. "Got your Exploding Snap cards? This is like watching paint dry."

Sev saw the tension suddenly grow in the shoulders of the nearest Death Eater. Was the curse-shield down yet? The second it was, they would probably start firing.

He had to stop walking abruptly to avoid slamming into the back of Remus, who had suddenly frozen. "What is it?" demanded Lily.

Lupin was staring fixedly at the nearer of the two 'Aurors'. "There's something... His robes, I smell... I smell blood!" Sev could smell nothing - but he knew there was a very good reason Remus Lupin's nose was considerably more sensitive than his.

It all seemed to happen at once. Perhaps the Death Eater was panicked by Lupin's words - perhaps he had simply finished what he was doing breaking through the wards. Either way, he reached quickly for his wand, his companion a beat behind him.

Right then, Lily did something nobody would have expected of her.

She screamed. Loudly. Piercingly. A scream to wake the dead, not to mention cut through the air and alert just about every student or teacher within four miles.

_Go, Lily,_ thought Sev quietly to himself. The echo of the scream seemed to hang in the air long after the sound had ceased. The momentary stillness seemed to stretch on to infinity, and then...

"Death Eaters!" yelled James, levelling his own wand. Lupin made a sound suspiciously like a growl in his throat, and let fly with an _Expelliarmus_ charm. The spell wasn't strong enough to deprive the Death Eater of his wand, but he fumbled to keep hold of it and lost whatever spell he was planning to launch.

Battle was joined. The two Death Eaters were trying valiantly to get their curses off, but they were facing attacks from all sides. Ironically, the explosively out-of-control duelling club had done far more to prepare the Gryffindors for combat than any properly handled lessons. These were student wizards who fought pitched magical battles two or three times a week.

Sev, in his invisibility cloak, stood calmly by, occasionally sending in a quick spell to nudge a wand off course when the Hogwarts defenders looked too slow.

The massed students had barely reacted, still too surprised, but he saw the three observing teachers hop down from their vantage point and come running. Ephemeria and Fractalis were coming too, charging towards them from the direction of the Forbidden Forest.

The Death Eaters' element of surprise had been well and truly busted. They had probably counted on being able to saunter in, pick their targets, and be blasting away before anybody had time to react.

Instead, there were hexes and curses flying so thickly no one had time to aim at anything. Pete Pettigrew was one of the first to go down, zapped with something which turned his legs to jelly. He and Sirius had come running, the dark haired boy startling the Death Eaters by leaping in and actually physically fighting them.

He saw James Potter grab Lily and shield her from a curse, crying out in pain as he went down under the force of Cruciatus. However, before the Death Eater had time to press home his advantage, Snape stepped in and zapped the wand out of his hand. The man groped for it quickly, looking around wildly to try and guess who'd shot the spell at him.

Suddenly Professors Vitae and Malachite were there, having left the short-legged Parilia behind in the dust. Vitae was trying to pull out her wand, but she seemed to have got it caught on something in the inside of her robes. "Do something, Carnus!" she snapped.

Professor Malachite had his wand in his hand and at the ready - and yet he seemed frozen, unable or unwilling to use it. "Attack!" Vitae urged him, but he just stood there helplessly.

Suddenly another voice rang out, loud enough to cut through all the chaos like a knife. It took a moment to place it, it sounded so different from Professor Fractalis's usual nervous stutter.

The long sequence of spell-words he used was completely unfamiliar to Snape; so much so that he was sure it had to be an original enchantment. Suddenly all around them, symbols appeared on the ground in blazing blue-white light. It was so powerful, everybody had to shield their eyes against it.

Apparently, Professor Fractalis's amazing geometric designs were a bit more powerful than he had let on.

Even Snape's unblinking stare wasn't enough to fight that blazing light, and he had to shut his eyes against it. When he could look again, the cloaked shapes of the Death Eaters were fleeing up the path. James and Sirius looked as if they were ready to go haring after them, but Professor Vitae held them back.

"Let them go, boys. You did a brave thing here, but you don't have the power to face them on their own ground." She scowled at Professor Malachite, who was looking decidedly embarrassed at the way he'd frozen up. Fractalis had gone bright red for a different reason, as Professor Ephemeria hugged him enthusiastically.

"Trigo, that was amazing!" she cried, and he went even redder.

It was all over bar the treatment of injuries and the alternate praising and scolding of the Gryffindors. Satisfied that the Death Eaters had been repulsed for the moment, Snape slipped silently away.

* * *

Lily caught up with him in a corridor on his way back to the quiet of the dorms. He turned to face her with a shrug, handing her the cloak before she asked for it. "Nobody died," he pointed out.

"Somebody will, one day," she said heavily. "This is a knife-edge, Severus, not even you can walk along it forever. Some day, sooner or later, people are gonna killed for this little scheme you're running. And then what?"

He looked at her for a long, unblinking moment, and then he said softly "Some must be sacrificed, if all are to be saved."

And after that, there was nothing more to say.

**End**


End file.
